1 Chronicles16chapter 16

1 Chronicles 16:1-3

Chronicles opens where 2 Sam 6:17-19 opens, the ark set in the midst of the tent David pitched, not the temple Solomon has not yet begun to build. Samuel moves on quickly to Michal at her window; Chronicles instead spends the rest of the chapter on what Samuel only summarizes in a line, the psalm and the choir David founds around the ark. The bread, flesh and wine dealt to every Israelite mark the day a festival before the singing even begins.

1 Chronicles 16:4-6

David appoints the Levites' offices in three verbs, to record, to thank and to praise, sole witness material Samuel does not carry at all. Asaph stands first, the name the Psalter later attaches to twelve psalm titles, and Chronicles fixes his house as chief of the choir at this verse. Benaiah and Jahaziel the priests take the trumpets, and Jeiel plays psalteries and harps while Asaph sounds the cymbals, the instrumentation this chapter founds for the ark's permanent service.

1 Chronicles 16:7

The psalm David hands to Asaph and his brethren is a composite, its opening sharing text with Ps 105:1-15, its middle with Ps 96, and its close with Ps 106:47-48, one liturgy standing in two books of Scripture. Wesley reads the word first as implying more psalms followed into the singers' hands across David's reign, and Jamieson, Fausset and Brown call it the royal bard's hymn composed for the ark's inauguration. Nothing like this composite text exists anywhere in Samuel's account of the same day.

1 Chronicles 16:8-11

call upon his name, make known: The psalm's opening four verses parallel Ps 105:1-4, calling Israel to give thanks, seek the LORD and his strength, and seek his face continually, the same verb seek that the Chronicler measures every later king by. That command anchors a refrain this book will not let go: 1 Chr 22:19, 2 Chr 15:12-13 and 20:3-4 all return to it in the same words. Gill reads glory ye in his holy name as the ground of the whole psalm, that the heart which seeks the LORD has cause to rejoice before any answer has come.

1 Chronicles 16:12-15

Verses 12 through 15 parallel Ps 105:5-8, remembering the LORD's wonders and the judgments of his mouth before naming Israel the seed of Israel his servant, his chosen ones. Clarke reads the whole psalm here as a recital of God's wondrous acts among the nations on Israel's behalf, memory turned deliberately into praise. Verse 15's covenant kept for a thousand generations sets up the three verses that follow, where Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are named in turn as its original recipients.

1 Chronicles 16:16-18

The covenant runs its three names in one breath, Abraham, Isaac by oath, and Jacob by confirmation, the land of Canaan named the lot of your inheritance while Israel was still a handful of strangers in it. Chronicles is written for a remnant just returned to that same land under Persian rule, and reciting the covenant here answers a people who need reminding the promise outlasted the exile. The wording follows Ps 105:9-11 almost word for word, part of the shared liturgy the chapter opened with.

1 Chronicles 16:19-22

Verses 19 through 22 recall Israel wandering few in number from nation to nation, protected because the LORD reproved kings for their sakes: touch not mine anointed, and do my prophets no harm. Clarke reads mine anointed as the patriarchs themselves, holding a kind of royal and priestly standing under God's own protection long before any throne existed in Israel. The clause parallels Ps 105:12-15 and closes the psalm's first half, the history lesson giving way to direct praise at verse 23.

1 Chronicles 16:23-25

At verse 23 the psalm shifts to Ps 96:1-3 nearly word for word, widening from Israel's own history to a summons aimed at all the earth and every nation. Shew forth from day to day his salvation moves the psalm from remembrance to mission, declaring his glory among the very heathen just named as the kings once reproved for Israel's sake. Verse 25's he also is to be feared above all gods sets up the contrast the next two verses draw between the LORD and the gods of the nations.

1 Chronicles 16:26-27

The psalm names the difference outright, the gods of the people are idols, but the LORD made the heavens, a contrast the prophets will later draw at far greater length against the gods of the nations. Glory and honour, strength and gladness are said to stand in his presence and in his place, courtly language borrowed here for the ark's own tent before any temple holds it. The pairing of idols against the maker of heaven belongs to Ps 96:4-6, the psalm's second borrowed source continuing without a seam.

1 Chronicles 16:28-29

Give unto the LORD repeats three times across these two verses, the kindreds of the people summoned to bring an offering and come before him. Verse 29 closes the summons with worship the LORD in the beauty of holiness, a phrase entering Scripture at this verse for the first of only four occurrences, the others at 2 Chr 20:21, Ps 29:2 and Ps 96:9. Henry reads holiness itself as the beauty of the LORD and of every sanctified life and religious act offered to him, the standard 2 Chr 20:21 later sends out in front of an army.

1 Chronicles 16:30-31

The world also shall be stable, that it be not moved answers the idols of verse 26 with the one God whose throne cannot be shaken, and verse 31 completes the thought with the shout let men say among the nations, The LORD reigneth. That declaration opens Ps 93, 97 and 99 as well, a formula the Chronicler's borrowed psalm shares with the wider Psalter's kingship songs. Clarke notes the Targum renders let the heavens be glad as the supreme angels rejoicing, a reading beyond the Hebrew text itself but preserved in the Aramaic tradition.

1 Chronicles 16:32-34

Sea, field and forest are called to rejoice and sing at the LORD's presence because he cometh to judge the earth, verses drawn from Ps 96:11-13 and shared with that psalm's ending almost word for word. Verse 34 then closes with O give thanks unto the LORD, for he is good, for his mercy endureth for ever, the refrain's first appearance in the canon's order, verified, with forty one more to follow through 2 Chr 5:13, 7:3, 20:21 and all of Ps 136. What began this chapter as a borrowed hymn becomes from this verse forward the Chronicler's own signature line.

1 Chronicles 16:35-36

Save us, O God of our salvation: The psalm's closing couplet, save us and gather us from the heathen, matches Ps 106:47-48 almost exactly, the doxology that closes the Psalter's fourth book. Wesley reads David composing this closing prayer by the spirit of prophecy for a future Israel scattered among the nations, words fitted for an exile still centuries away. All the people said, Amen, and praised the LORD gives the congregation its answering voice to the psalm David handed Asaph, the same Amen that seals Ps 106 in its own place in the Psalter.

1 Chronicles 16:37-38

David leaves Asaph and his brethren before the ark continually, as every day's work required, turning the psalm just sung into a standing office rather than a single occasion's ceremony. Obed-edom, whose house the ark blessed for three months in 2 Sam 6:11, now serves it as a porter alongside Hosah, sixty and eight Levites named in all. The ark in Jerusalem has singers and gatekeepers but no altar of its own, since the brasen altar for sacrifice still stands at Gibeon, the split the next two verses describe.

1 Chronicles 16:39-40

Zadok and his brethren minister before the tabernacle of the LORD at the high place at Gibeon, where Moses' altar for burnt offering still stands and the daily morning and evening sacrifice continues according to the law. Jerusalem now holds the ark, the singers and the covenant presence; Gibeon holds the tabernacle, a full priesthood and the altar of sacrifice, worship split between two sites for the rest of David's reign. Clarke and Jamieson, Fausset and Brown both note the arrangement stood until Solomon, when 2 Chr 1:3-5 finds the king still sacrificing at Gibeon's tabernacle before the temple unites the two under one roof.

1 Chronicles 16:41-42

Heman and Jeduthun join Asaph as the second and third of the three principal singers Chronicles will name in full at 1 Chr 6:33 and 25:1, their courses fixed at Gibeon rather than at Jerusalem. Their charge to give thanks to the LORD because his mercy endureth for ever carries the refrain verse 34 just planted out to the second site as well as the first. Trumpets, cymbals and what the text calls musical instruments of God accompany them, and Jeduthun's own sons serve there as porters just as Obed-edom's kin do before the ark.

1 Chronicles 16:43

The chapter closes on the same day 2 Sam 6:19-20 records, the people sent home fed, and David returning to bless his own household. Samuel's version continues straight into Michal's contempt at David dancing before the LORD, and that whole scene is missing here, the selection principle stated in the book's opening chapters holding again. Chronicles ends the day on David's blessing rather than his wife's rebuke, keeping the chapter's tone the thanksgiving it began as.